McLaren’s policy of driver equality was a subject of furious debate during the 2007 season (not least on this site), when Alonso and Lewis Hamilton fell out spectacularly.

Martin Whitmarsh insists that, despite Lewis Hamilton getting a major upgrade for the MP4-24 one race before Heikki Kovalainen this year, he wants to avoid similar situations in future and give his drivers the same equipment.

Speaking in a media briefing he said:

As a matter of policy we do everything we can possibly to avoid giving different equipment and opportunity to our drivers. It well publicised we don’t operate a number one driver status.

We had an occasion in Germany which was the worst time in which we’ve provided different equipment in my 20 years at McLaren. It felt deeply uncomfortable. But at the time I had pushed on our organisation very hard to bring something forward after Silverstone and the pain we felt with our result there.

Effectively we were delivering parts to the circuit and building cars on Friday morning. I found it an uncomfortable process to not give drivers equal equipment. Given where we were it was a justifiable decision – but I have to say that because it was mine!

Without track testing between races we need to use practice one and practice two as part of our development process. So we used different parts on each car in those sessions. By practice two each car had converged on same specification of front wing and rear floor.

In order to do that we have to make a relatively large number of parts. We’re more cost conscious now than we’ve ever been. We don’t make parts now unless we’ve got a reasonable expectation of improvement.

Other teams have historically run much more different cars across the garage than we have. Based on that one extreme experience in Germany I don’t like it and we will always try to provide equal equipment in future.Martin Whitmarsh

When I first discovered your site, as I was going through your archives, I realized I had seen one of your articles (Autosport & Wednesdays) at the top of Google News for some legitimate search result!

This is a debate thats been going on for years..stretches way back to the Hakkinen Couthard years.

You guys watched Louise Goodman’s ITV interviews with DC last year, he mentioned in one session about how he understands what Alonso went through at Mclaren, He clearly stated that you would not understand it unless you’ve been in it.

I agree that Mclaren has the most trouble in convincing the world they treat drivers equally..because they dont! This has got nothing to do with Lewis Hamilton being a black rookie who has the world against him or Heikki Kovalainen being slow moving Finn..its just the Mclaren way.

Whitmarsh comes across as a straight shooter. I think it’s a pretty noble goal to have a publicly stated equal-treatment policy and doing your best to stick to it.

The question is whether car development will proceed in a direction that favors one driver over another or not. This is something that cannot really be avoided. If one driver starts getting strong results from a specific update, it will be very difficult for the designers and engineers to backtrack and make major adjustments to even things out. Wonder how they’ll address that issue.

The reason behind why Hamilton got the “upgrade” first is because with the in-season testing ban, factories from all teams have to put them on the cars at gps. There is no point in manufactoring 2 of the same component when one will suffice as to get data/driver feed back.

And i put it to you, wouldn’t you put the better driver onto the case to test out the new and untested component, so you can get the most of of it as posible?

Whitmarsh is saying (I think) that both drivers, irrespective of who is, or is doing, “better” will get the same equipment at each race.

There are certainly production and deadline issues that may mean only one part gets manufactured for a weekend. When this happens, if McLaren are true to their pledge, drivers would alternate getting unique upgrades over weekends. So it would be Kovi’s turn if once again there’s only one part for a weekend.

I totally agree that it’s a rational move for McLaren to give the part to Lewis first, premised on Lewis being better than Kovi.

But Whitmarsh seems to be saying that they won’t be partial to any driver even if he is “better” (for some definition of “better”). If he’s not saying this, what’s he saying?

Well…why were the new additions given to Ham and not kovi…They are equal after all.

If you read the media briefing by Martin Whitmarsh, you wouldn’t need to ask this pointless question.

And are they really equal? I would propose not. Apart from Germany, those two have had the same race package… how often do we see Heiki in front of Hamilton? And what about last year? They are clearly NOT equal, but have equal rights to equipment of course. But again, read Martin Whitmarshes media briefing for a very sound explanation.

There are too many people in the world who’d rather just flame the successful without any thought, instead of putting themselves into those shoes for a minute or two and having a proper think about things.

Red Andy, yes it’s not an Alonso-era phenomenon, IMO rather a phenomenon created by sore losers, pretty much the same thing when Barrichello was seriously complaining: “The team made me lose the race”.

There are hard facts that can prove McLaren treat their drivers equally, Coulthard for example, won the 99′ Belgium GP, 10sec ahead of Hakkinen, where Hakkinen was fighting with Irine for the WDC(2 pts behind Irine). In the end Hakkinen won it by 2 point. It’s always difficult to convince people when they simply chose to ignore the facts and insist on what they want to believe.

I dont think ur comparison is just. I think all your comparison shows is McLaren has taken in two very good drivers on more occasions than any other team. Whereas teams like Ferrari prefer one good driver and one a bit off. No matter how much noise Irvine made, Schumacher was way superior than him, and again Schumacher was better than both Barichello and Massa.

But this feeling of driver inequality has cropped up more in the McLaren camp than any other. Y take two good drivers if you cant manage it.

Some days ago Oliver explained why is hard sometime to provide the drivers with the same equipment:

Designing new parts is the easiest part of the equation. MANUFACTURING those new parts is where the problem exists in. Carbon fiber needs to go into autoclaves and pressure chambers and blah blah. A single component may need about a week or 3weeks to manufacture. If they are using a scaled wind tunnel, they then have to redo the part at full scale. Then it has to be verified, on track to ensure the new part corroborates with the figures they got in the wind tunnel. If it doesn’t work, they chuck it. There is no point and no time in making 2 identical parts that might end up being discarded immediately.
If they were parts to improve reliability, the engineers will know of the existing problem and design a fix that might work better than before, but not necessarily with the optimum reliability. However, they will certainly know the new part will be better than the old, so they can make for both cars immediately. In the case of parts for performance, these are parts that probably change very often, the engineers are groping in the dark, they have ideas but not all the answers, if they had all the answers, they will design a car that will not need any updates.

If there is one team that treats its drivers with equality, it has to be mclaren. if i’m right alonso never accused mclaren of providing him with inferior machinery, it was the uncivilized spanish media that blew things out of proportion. in fact mclaren had to design & manufacture an unique braking system for monza, just for alonso, he eventually went on to win the race. this was at a time when ron & alonso weren’t seeing eye to eye.i find it very amusing when people start ranting about alonso & 2007. people have to accept that alonso got beaten by a better driver in an equal equipment in 2007. thats the fact.

I think most of you are somewhat missing the main point around why most F1 drivers complain about driver inequality. The main complaint comes when the driver is not able to choose or have the optimum strategy for the race. I think if you go back and look at the facts of 2007 with Alonso and Mclaren, you will see that Alonso very seldom was given the optimum strategy. Added to that he was not even involved on which strategy was chosen for him and why. Added to that it was clear from the beginning that Ron Dennis favoured Lewis.
That in essence is when drivers complain about inequality; inequality if optimum strategy and senior management bias to a driver.

Added to that it was clear from the beginning that Ron Dennis favoured Lewis.

I think I watched another season, indeed…

Since the beginning Ron has given Fernando the optimal strategy and you can see HERE on Keith’s report about the first race but I have an excerpt for you to remember in details what happened in the beginning of 2007:

Qualifying for the first race in Melbourne set the tone for the season. Lewis Hamilton was two tenths of a second faster than Fernando Alonso in the first part. He repeated it in the second part until Alonso, oddly, chose to do an extra lap, which proved quick enough to put him ahead of his team mate.

He cemented that position in the final part of qualifying by taking second, Hamilton (carrying more fuel) fourth behind Nick Heidfeld. But at the start of the race Alonso received the clear message that his new team mate would be no push over.

Lewis Hamilton, Robert Kubica, Melbourne, 2007Neither McLaren started well from the dirty side of the grid and Heidfeld passed Alonso just as Robert Kubica took Hamilton. But the Briton fought back, not only passing Kubica around the outside of the first corner, but Alonso as well.

Hamilton demonstrated an extraordinary capacity for perfectly judging his braking point for the first corner of a race which we would see again at Sepang, the Nurburgring and Monza. But although he led Alonso at the start, the Spaniard was ahead by the end of the race.

In the light of what happened later it’s ironic to remember that Hamilton inadvertently helped Alonso win the Malaysian Grand Prix. Another stunning start carried him past both Ferraris, and millimetre-perfect defensive driving duped Felipe Massa into a mistake for which the Ferrari driver was justifiably pilloried.

Hamilton kept Raikkonen tucked up while Alonso scampered off to head a McLaren one-two, the Spanish driver taking the championship lead.

The efect of 1 more lap of fuel for Melbourne is 0,115 Secs, so, at the end, Fernando Alonso was FASTER than Lewis Hamilton in Q2 and Q3 (fuel corrected).

I totally agree with you and Keith about the outstanding performance of Lewis Hamilton keeping in mind that was his first race in Formula one, but the facts do not match your comments and Keith report you have quoted here.

The point here is about “optimum strategy” and we can see in other report, written by Mark Hughes, how McLaren worked to ensure that Alonso would be have the best one to beat Lewis in Melbourne/2007:

“He totally underestimated Hamilton at the start. This lasted into the first three races. This lack of respect for Hamilton’s level made it extra difficult to accept when the rookie rivalled his speed – as he did immediately. When Alonso had to sacrifice a set of new tyres by making a second run in Q2 in Melbourne in order to beat Hamilton’s time and thereby ensure strategic preference in the race, he was irritated he’d had to do so. He was the double champion, the team should be ensuring they beat all the others by backing him, their best bet. Now he’d wasted a valuable bit of ammunition just to see off his team-mate.

How do you know how much fuel Lewis and Fernando had on board in the start of the race or after his first pit stop to adjust their times? You don´t know and there something missing in you figures, that is the second pit stop when even with much more fuel than Fernando (considering you figures!) Lewis stopped two laps earlier than him.

First of all, sorry for my short knowledge of English. I’m afraid there is something I’m not explaining well, when I read your answers,

I will try againg despite is going to be a long way for me…

How do I make fuel corrected timing?

According to 2007 regulations, all cars where refueled after qualifying session with the fuel burned during Q3. For this reason, if you want to make any fuel correction you need to take in consideration how many laps driver did during Q3.

For that case, both drivers made 10 laps each, so, there was not any difference.

So I take the number of laps each driver made before their first pit stop, just to know how many fuel (in term of number of laps) each driver had when they were making Q3.

It’s not important to know how many fuel each driver had, it’s important to know the difference between both drivers.

So, for this case, L Hamilton was carrying fuel for 1 Lap more than F Alonso.

So my point was during Q3, F Alonso’s time was made with fuel for 1 Lap less than L Hamilton.

And this calculations are based on the available facts given the statistics reported by FIA.

I have not added any other kind of considerations. Maybe you think the team asked L Hamilton to pit earlier during his first pit stop, so my calculations should be wrong.

But, with all my respect, that should be surmises, as well as your comment about the second pit stop, in wich the team put more fuel in L Hamilton car and called him earlier than needed.

You cannot make that assumptions with available data.

In any case, I’m sure I’m not explaining myself very well, because I cannot understand how can you infer any fuel strategy for the second pit stop taking my figures!!!

Well talking about equal equipment, Mclaren’s cars are getting new parts for this weekend. A new front wing and rear floor. They are are to try the front wing on 1 car and the new floor on the other. This is what he said

“Team principal Martin Whitmarsh revealed on Wednesday that improvements brought to the car would be tried out separately by Lewis Hamilton and Heikki Kovalainen in first practice for the European GP.

“This coming weekend we have a new front wing system for the car to hopefully bring some more performance,” said Whitmarsh during a ‘Phone-in’ media call on Wednesday.

“You will see that will be on one car in P1, with the new rear floor on the other car in P1…we need to back-to-back the new front wing and rear floor modifications, so by P2 both cars will have converged on the same specification.”LINK

Keith I’d just thought i’d tell you that the 2010 F1 technical&sporting regulations have been published by the FIA on their website. Refuelling is banned, KERS is till permitted, tyre blankets are still permitted, low fuel qualy is back and the minimum weight is now 620kg.

It’s high time someone finally gave him the hint. :) He has managed to be a complete non-story. He had a lucky Hungaroring win last year – thanks to Massa’s engine failure. Otherwise, this guy doesn’t have the guts to win a race.

It doesn’t surprise me too much that teams are giving one driver different parts to another. Because of the in-season testing ban, there’s no way for a team to develop new parts the way they normally would. So their only real option – espeically if they’re at the middle to back the way McLaren and Renault have been – is to test over the course of a weekend. Of course, they can’t rightly stick equal parts on both cars, because then you get something of a Brawn situation: the developments harm more than the help.

It’s a blind scientific test, sticking new parts on one car and runing them against a car with the old kit. It’s designed to test the new stuff against the old, to make sure it actually does what it’s supposed to. Once they’re on to a good thing – the way McLaren are now – I wholly expect both drivers will get equal parts. In the case of Renault, they’re still not where they want to be. And because Grosjean may take a few races to break himself in a little, Renault could very well continue the tend of mismatched car parts for testing purposes. The problem with that is working out whether the difference in lap times is coming from the new parts on Alonso’s car or from Grosjean’s inexpeirence in Formula One …

Shouldn’t a team try to provide a car that fits each drivers needs and desires? For example, some drives prefer a bit of oversteer, while others tend to like a bit of understeer. Shouldn’t the team be able to satisfy each without being accused of favoritisim?

That’s a reasonable enough statement, but I think you’ll find that the cars have to be largely the same. They might rn different parts from race to race, but eventually both cars will have the same parts.

And a lot of the preference for understeer or oversteer and the like comes from setting the car up, not the actual parts attached to it.

As much as we may try to believe otherwise, the fact that we know in our hearts is that Formula 1 is no longer a sport, it has become big business.

Winning is still the object, but where victory once gave joy & a feeling of accomplishment, it nows brings relief that the sponsors will be happy and everyone keeps their jobs for at least one more week.

It’s all about the almighty dollar these days, and any team will do whatever is necessary to achieve the desired result. Favor one driver? Of course! As teams always have in F1. If he is winning, he is the team’s meal ticket and gets all the goodies, in hopes he will bring 2 championships to the team. Which will bring even more dollars for the team.

It’s also about keeping the sponsors happy and, for some of the teams, keeping a good image to help sell their road cars.

Call me cynical if you like, but I’ve been following F1 for 50 years, and believe me, it isn’t what it used to be. It stopped being a “sport” many years ago.

Or did your usage there indicate I must be old? Hey, like I used to tell Noah after a hard day’s work on the Ark, you’re only as old as you think.

Seriously, though, Granda took me to Silverstone for my 6th birthday, in 1956. Saw Fangio win another race on his way to his 4th Championship. I was hooked then, and still am, though some things I see today I know would make drivers like Fangio, Ascari and Senna spin in their graves.

when u have a team with such driver accomplishment variation then why wouldnt a team that wants to win put the parts on the faster drivers car? the principle is the same as any sport. a basketball coach wants the ball in his best players hands at the end of the game…not his 2nd or 3rd option. give them the ball so they can perform…..although car racing is a lot different the principle isnt. give the best driver the parts to do what he does and that is to win races. why gamble when u have more of a sure thing. would u rather them not give the driver the parts until they have produced enough for both….and in turn sacrifice potential constructors points?

McLaren typically does follow the equal treatment philosophy, but there have been times when they haven’t.

Does anyone obviously think that they didn’t favor Senna over Berger? Surely not, and Berger probably knew it and was nonetheless fine with it.

Furthermore, let’s not forget that at the beginning of 2007, McLaren favored ALONSO! It was McLaren who switched the drivers in running order under the final pitstop in the first race of the year in Australia, moving Alonso ahead of Hamilton after Hamilton had been ahead of him the whole race. It was also McLaren who both pulled Hamilton into the pits early at Monaco (even though he was running heavier fuel than Alonso) to keep Alonso ahead and then further radioed Hamilton to not challenge Alonso when he was breathing down his neck.

It was only after Hamilton won two grands prix and built a lead in the driver’s championship that the team really started treating their drivers equally. They kept alternating fuel strategies among the drivers, which is how the controversy in Hungary began as Alonso was supposed to move ahead of Hamilton on the track in Q3 and get the extra lap of fuel burn. It was only in China when McLaren really favored Hamilton, as they had the chance to lock up the driver’s championship that weekend (and proceeded to blow it all away with a poor call on the tires).

Right now, the team are probably slightly favoring Hamilton, but it’s only favoritism in so far as that he gets first dibs on upgrades when only one is available. He’s gotten the upgrade in every race from the start of the year in which this has been the case, including both Germany and Hungary. It’s only right that he does, as he’s the champion. It’s up to Kovalainen to display form deserving of getting the upgrades in this type of situation, and so far he hasn’t.

I like your term “slightly favouring Hamilton”
but it’s not really the truth of the matter.

McLaren are totally favouring Hamilton this year and so they should. Kovalinen has been pathetic this year. There’s no way he’s going to remain at McLaren next year.

Renault are totally favouring Alonso; as they should, as Piquet was next to useless. So useless that they let him go – not sure why they took so long as it was clear from last year already that he was not up to it. They have replaced him now with Grosjean.

I go back to my initial comment – all F1 drivers no matter how bad they are; expect and receive equal equipment. It’s only in the rare case; (exaggerated this year due to the limited to no testing allowed) that at some races (perhaps one or two) cars from same team are not of equal specification specification.

It’s only when a specific driver continually gets allocated the optimum race strategy AND (this is important) the management of the team also focus their full attention on that driver; that the “unloved” other driver starts to complain.

Unfortunatley the above situation is a very natural human tendancy; and will continue to happen forever. As humans we all love a winner, and teams are no different.

Take a look at the reaction and support of the British public this year towards Jensen Button and away from Lewis Hamilton as an illustration of this point.

Bottom line – F1 teams are a business, not a sport. Their income and future is based primarliy on how many points they get during a season. As a result they will always focus on maximising the potential points haul. If like Red Bull – they have two fairly equal drivers they will provide equal strategy and support to both drivers until one does not have a mathematical chnace to attain the title.
If on the other hand you have a team like McLaren or Renault or Torro Rosso where the one driver is so much better than the other you will almost solely focus your attention, efforts and resources on that driver to achieve results.

I think this favoratism is way overblown. With Schumacher at Benneton indeed there were rumours that his cars was always more advanced from the one that his team mates drove. These days the drivers do get equal equipment as much as possible.

Getting an update a race later once in a while is not that big a deal really and if the no2 driver would show that he’s faster, then why would the team keep him as no2 still? Indeed like with Hamilton and Alonso.

They simply will switched that little bit of extra focus to the driver who was fastest. Regardless who that is.

I simply don’t see the point. 18 other drivers have different cars anyways. If we fans want a fair treatment for drivers, they should drive a spec series. Why should a team support both drivers equally while favoring one will increase the chance of winning the championship? It’s simply against human nature. As a racing driver, I rather all teams have equal cars.